


marriage, that blessed union (the cold feet remix)

by timber (calculus)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Exes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-05 19:52:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15870603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calculus/pseuds/timber
Summary: The choices are simple, but he’s so afraid to play the game.





	marriage, that blessed union (the cold feet remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dollyeo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyeo/gifts).
  * Inspired by [getting over you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14633883) by [transit (dollyeo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollyeo/pseuds/transit). 



_I want you to marry me._

 

When Soonyoung was about seven, his third cousin got married to a really pretty girl. The family held a whole ceremony for it, demanding tradition over expediency, and so Soonyoung got to wear an actual hanbok to his first wedding. It was okay, just kinda scratchy and he had to wear a headpiece that kept sliding off his head.

What he really remembers was how the couple had looked when they saw each other in their hanboks, the bright apple-red cheeks painted on the girl’s face almost matching the natural flush of his cousin’s, and their wide smiles. His hyung hadn’t looked a second away from his wife-to-be, so much so that he’d actually tripped while walking down the procession line and brought her down with him. It was a mess, honestly, with the shocked cries and the murmurings, but the thing that stood out to Soonyoung at the time was just how much his hyung and the girl had laughed at themselves and each other, unbothered.

That was the kind of love he wanted to have.

 

_You’ve been so distracted with me lately._

 

Soonyoung’s first love was a girl in middle school, Ahn Yeojung. She had the prettiest black hair that came down in waves on her back, the ends that curled loosely and fluttered in the air whenever she shook her head or waved her hand in class to answer a question. He shared his milk and bread set with her on a day she’d forgotten money to buy lunch from the school canteen, and Yeonjung had given him the most radiant smile. He could almost hear the way his heart had been shot; the feeling is hard to forget once the body learns.

He falls in love three more times, each time with that same heart-zing, like an electrical jolt connected to his brain that signaled every time a girl or boy snatched him up. Bo Byunghee sophomore year of high school, Yoon Jeonghan senior year, Lee Taemin every time he sees his idol on TV.

It wasn’t like that with Wonwoo.

 

_I can’t believe you’re going to leave us like this to go on that fucking road trip with your ex-boyfriend._

 

Jeon Wonwoo was five when he moved into Soonyoung’s neighborhood. Fresh from the countryside in Changwon, he’d been a small skinny waif with eyes magnified by overly-large glasses and limbs that outgrew the rest of his body. He looked like one heavy breath from Soonyoung could tumble him to the ground, but when he’d tried, Wonwoo just frowned at him and pulled away. Soonyoung had been a little disappointed.

It took him maybe two weeks of their parents ushering them to play together before he’d realized that Wonwoo was shy and that his bland face was only just bland because he’d been too anxious to show anything else. The moment Soonyoung had managed to crack Wonwoo into genuine laughter, with a dumb pun and an embarrassing drop of his ice cream cone, Wonwoo came to life, face scrunching and squeezing with each bursting giggle. It made his boyish face rather ugly, but it was also the best thing Soonyoung had ever seen.

Wonwoo doesn’t really laugh like that around him anymore. It’s hard not to feel resentful about it.

 

_I love you, Soonyoung-ah._

 

He dated Wonwoo in university. The way it sounds in his head, summarized so clinically, hasn’t stopped feeling odd even now, eight years after the fact. Kwon Soonyoung dated Jeon Wonwoo for a while, and they didn’t work out. They didn’t work out, and Kwon Soonyoung moved on.

It always feels less real when he’s with Wonwoo, though. They went on that trip to Japan, right after they’d broken up, and it had been maybe the worst trip of Soonyoung’s life. He can’t even think of the Hokkaido plains and the fucking milk boxes without his brain automatically dredging up the way he and Wonwoo had fought the entire trip, bickering and yelling over the smallest things because they couldn’t talk to each other without that buffer.

The thing is: Soonyoung dated Wonwoo in university, and Wonwoo broke his heart. If he’d mapped out the leading points of his life of everything that added up and up to where he is today, it would go something like Wonwoo and Soonyoung met > Wonwoo kissed him behind the school building > Soonyoung fell in love > Wonwoo fell out of love.

That’s what gets him the most. Wonwoo fell out of love with him, and Soonyoung was left to fall back to reality on his own with no cushioning.

 

_Why do you never say it back?_

 

Sun Seunghyun asked him out first.

On Soonyoung’s worst days, he’s uncharitable enough to think that this is karma in some way, trying to give him a second cycle after his first attempt at love petered out.

Seunghyun was smitten with him from the get-go, and it was a bit unnerving, but it was also thrilling. He made Soonyoung feel wanted, the way Wonwoo had made him feel tossed aside for scraps after their break-up, and it’d been a feeling that Soonyoung had missed dearly. Like a hit after so many days of trying to abstain, how it rushed through his veins and tingled in his fingertips with a guilty exhilaration.

He fucked like a dream, too. Bruising Soonyoung’s hips with his prints and slamming into him with each thrust like he had something to prove, and Soonyoung had missed that, too. Seunghyun felt like wildfire, like the smoulder and ash that trailed behind a forest blaze, ruining him with each pull of his cock and jerk of his hips.

Wonwoo was—

 

_Marry me._

 

The truth is, Soonyoung doesn’t know what to do.

He’s sitting in a fucking car with a boy who didn’t love him enough, thousands and thousands of miles away from a boyfriend who loves him _too much_ and Soonyoung’s only functioning thought is that he needs a smoke so badly. As if the nicotine rush would be able to clear anything up.

The choices are simple, but he’s so afraid to play the game.

> A) Say yes and be married.  
>  ~~B) Say yes and be unhappy.~~  
>  ~~C) Say no and be unhappy.~~  
>  D) Say no and break up.

“What do I do now, Wonwoo?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> dear ao3 user dollyeo:
> 
> i'm sorry. i tried. :(


End file.
